Excess fat in an individual can be undesirable for a number of reasons. In some cases, the excess fat can be aesthetically unpleasing, such as in the case of cellulite, and other externally visible fat deposits such as, for example, fat deposits in the submental (under the chin), abdominal, waist, and thigh regions. In other cases, excess fat can result in obesity, which can be associated with, and increase the likelihood of, a myriad of diseases and conditions such as, for example type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, heart disease, some types of cancer, osteoarthritis, and others. Consequently, there is a need for cosmetic fat reduction and therapeutic fat reduction.
Many methods for fat reduction generally involve exercise and diet control. However methods of fat reduction by administration of fat-reducing compounds offer advantages such as simplicity, ease of implementation, and an ability to target fat deposits in both systemic (e.g. throughout the whole body of the individual) and localized (e.g. directly to submental fat and/or cellulite deposits) manners. In particular, the compound bimatoprost is one compound which has been shown to reduce body weight (see e.g., US Patent Application Publications 2014/0275272 and US 2014/0308354). However, bimatoprost administration sometimes results in hair growth, an effect exemplified by the marketing of bimatoprost formulations as the product LATISSE®. Such hair growth is not always desirable and may in fact sometimes be undesirable.
Therefore, there is a need for methods of fat reduction which do not result in concomitant hair growth, such as hair growth at the site at which fat reduction is desired. Additionally, there is also a need for a method or treatment in which fat deposits are reduced substantially without the pain and inflammation associated with fat cell freezing, heating, lysing, or otherwise destroying the fat deposits through physical or chemical means.